HOW TO USE STORIES-religious
HOW TO USE STORIES-religious 1. An opportunity and a danger. 2. Seven aims in story-telling, and their relations to moral education. a. To entertain. How far legitimate in teaching ? b. To guide reading. How can it serve the moral pur¬pose? c. For purposes of language-study. How it may mis¬lead the teacher of morals. I. For intellectual discipline. The error of developing a story. The significance of the question as a teaching device. e. For illustration. Special advantage of illustrative stories. For esthetic culture. Relation to the moral aim. g. For direct influence upon The long story or poem peddled out in small instalments is an artistic and pedagogical absurdity. — Percival Chubb. The inquiry is sometimes made, how such literature should be used in practical teaching. I would say that one's first duty to a story is to love it. Nothing in the way of discussion is legiti¬mate that interferes with the prerogative of the young mind to absorb a story and to reproduce it in its own way. — Richard G. Moulton. The anecdote in a sermon answers the purpose of an engrav¬ing in a book. — Charles H. Spurgeon. THE recent very marked development of interest in story-telling has led to the production of a considerable literature on the subject. To this the teacher of morals and religion who has just become interested in the use of stories will naturally turn for guidance. Much of it will be of very real value to him; some, however, is likely to lead him astray because it is the product of the experience of those who use stories for a purpose very different from his own. Some further words of warning and guidance have greater significance for this reason. Seven different aims in story-telling may be defined. The first of these is that of most of the story-telling in home and social life. Its purpose is simply to add to the pleasure of those who listen. Much of the somewhat technical discussion of the short story in which the canons of literary art are applied to their construction and criticism clearly make this their dominant aim. This implies a point of view quite different from that of the teacher of morals, and the literary standards for the selection of material can not always be safely followed. Still it is true that what is genuinely artistic is usually pedagogically correct, and there is often much of helpful suggestion here as to method. To make the lesson attractive is surely a legitimate aim provided that the fundamental question of its influence upon character has been settled first. The tact¬ful use of stories certainly does make the lesson less formal and more pleasing to the average learner. The pupil approaches with pleasant anticipations the teacher who thus gives his lessons the touch of life in the concrete and of human interest, and the simple establishment of such a sympathetic and friendly relationship is a long step toward success in teaching. For this reason alone the teacher might well make considerable use of narra¬tion in his teaching work. The danger is that stories will be used that do not further the fundamental aim of the lesson. Where this happens there is a double blun¬der; the right story will be more pleasing as well as more effective in influencing character. Story-telling of another kind seeks to introduce children to the best literature, and to guide the formation of habits of reading. This use of stories finds some exemplification in the schools, but is best illustrated in the story-telling that is now carried on in many public libraries. It consists largely in the presentation of samples of the literature for children that may be found upon the library shelves, though it is not confined to this alone where it is under the best leadership. The special plans that are suggested in this connection, except so far as they deal with method in story-telling, contain little that is of particular value to the Sunday-school teacher except as they can be utilized to bring children into acquaintance with the contents of the Sunday- school library. In settlements and similar institutions they may have a larger place. A third use of stories, perhaps the most common in the schools, is in connection with language-study. Here much is made of the reproduction of the story by the pupil, and the instructions given in the best text¬books and outlines of lesson plans are especially likely to mislead the teacher of morals. A model lesson in one of the standard text-books on general method, which is largely used in normal schools, and to which Sunday- school teachers who take their work seriously some¬times turn for guidance, may be cited as an example. The teacher is instructed to tell a story (which can be related in five minutes) in eight sections, at the close of each one of which he is to pause while that portion is retold by the pupils, whose misconceptions are to be corrected. This is to be followed by repeated telling of each paragraph until all the children can repeat the story in good language, which, it is stated, will require several recitation periods of twenty minutes each. All this precedes an attempt to. discover and enforce the moral lessons of the story. In case of a good story well told such formal application would be worse than useless; it is hardly necessary to suggest that if a story is pre¬sented as directed above the effort to make its moral content impressive must necessarily be a labored process. The error is in the confusion of the moral and the literary aim. If both are to be sought with the use of the same material the moral lesson from the story as a whole must precede the other. A misguided effort to apply the important educational principle that teaches that impression from teacher or text-book should always be followed by expression from the pupil leads some of the most conscientious and in¬telligent Sunday-school teachers to fall into this error — for error it certainly is if results in character are what the teacher seeks. Where the purpose is to train the pupil in the use of correct language the principle is correctly applied, but the true " expression " of a moral lesson consists not in giving back its words but in mani¬festing its spirit in daily conduct. Not only does this method fail to secure that result, but it tends directly to hinder its accomplishment, for it centers attention upon the story's form and diverts it from its meaning. The impression that is left by a story that is used in moral education should be like that of a picture. If it is reproduced in very great detail by the pupil, and particularly if this is in response to questions by the teacher, this unified impression is likely to be lost, and for it is substituted a mass of relatively isolated details — something that resembles a museum rather than a picture, a catalogue rather than a story. If, however, the child reproduces the story in its en¬tirety, and in his own way, no harm is done, for if the teacher's work has been successful he will emphasize the story's content rather than its form. Indeed it may well serve a valuable end, as the teacher will gain at least a hint as to what moral impression has been made. One may fairly question whether even the training in language might not be more effectively accomplished in another way than that set forth above. As a means of culture of literary appreciation it ranks with the parsing of Gray's Elegy and the translating of Virgil as a second Latin text. For purposes of moral and religious educa¬tion it would be almost equally ineffective. Another use of stories in the schools is as a means of general intellectual training. Here the effort is to de¬velop the reasoning powers and to foster the habit of mental alertness. With this aim in view the story is usually " developed " through questioning by the teacher. To follow such a method when one has a moral aim is as unfortunate a blunder as the one mentioned above. If the teacher pauses at a critical moment to ask, "What do think that he did next ? " "How could you have escaped from such a place ? " "Who can tell of a better way ? " he may secure some clever guesses, but he spoils his story. The steady flow of thought and feeling toward one particular end is checked; the im¬pression already made is dissipated. The pupils' wits may have been sharpened, but their hearts have not been stirred. The teacher who desires to know the effect upon the hearer of such impertinent interruption of the story's course can ascertain by a process of introspection while he listens to the story-teller who says, " And just as the bear grabbed him along came a man named Henry Jones. I think it was Henry Jones, but it may have been his brother John. There were six children in that family and all boys; I never could keep them straight. But probably it was Henry, for he always was loafing around with a gun. Well, just as the bear reached him, along came this man with a double-barrelled shotgun loaded with number-eight shot to kill woodcock. He always was hunting birds out of season!" etc. It will aid the teacher to avoid some of these errors if he will remember that the question is as distinctly and as characteristically a device for stirring the intel¬lectual powers as the story is for stimulating the feelings. There are, of course, times when the rhetorical question, one which the hearer is not expected to answer, but which serves to quicken and prolong curiosity, may be wisely used; but as a rule the story and the question are teach¬ing devices that are not readily combined. A fifth use of stories is for the purpose of illustration, in the strict use of the term, — that is, to aid the learner to gain a clear conception of some unfamiliar truth by calling to mind some well-known experience or fact and pointing out the likeness of the new idea to this one whose meaning has been mastered. This is not the place to discuss the value or the methods of illustration, but it is germane to say that the story is one of the most valuable, attractive, and readily obtained forms of illustration that the teacher can use. In moral and religious teaching it is especially useful because it may at the same time aid to give clear conceptions of duty and stir the feelings that prompt to its performance. In this use of stories brevity is one of the chief essentials, and the drill in analysis and condensation that has been suggested in previous chapters will aid the teacher to the attainment of that terseness and pointedness that is a cardinal virtue in that kind of teaching. Another use of stories is for the culture of the imagina¬tion and the esthetic feelings. It seeks to develop correct literary taste, and to train to an appreciation of the beautiful and the ideal in the whole environment of the child. Stories are often used with both this aim and one of those previously mentioned, but perhaps there is more frequent combination with the next, which is that of direct moral or religious influence. It is in sub¬stantially the same way that the story influences the hearer for the esthetic and the moral end, and suggestions as to the use of stories for the first aim will contain much to guide the teacher of morals to a correct method. The direct moral and religious aim is the most im¬portant one of the Sunday-school teacher, is very promi¬nent in the kindergarten, has some place and should have a larger one in the grades and in the high school, and is beginning to be appreciated by the Young Women's Christian Associations, the Young Men's Christian Associations (in the Boys' Branches at least), by settle¬ments, vacation schools, playgrounds, and other in¬stitutions that have a moral aim. This use of stories simply as stories, but with the aim of influencing conduct and character is the one that the writer has had chiefly in mind throughout the preceding chapters. It is the most important one for the Sunday- school teacher. He who learns to present the text of a Bible lesson in the form of a well-told story instead of by the old-fashioned reading of "a verse about" will find that something has happened to his class. After such an introduction more detailed discussion may follow as seems profitable. The teacher who uses such a method will not be content to present only the Biblical material in that way, but will find many opportunities to introduce other story-material in the introduction to the lesson or in the final step of application. The method of Jesus will commend itself to those who test it fairly. HINTS FOR FIRST - HAND STUDY As opportunity offers listen to story-telling in kindergartens, schools, libraries, social gatherings, etc., and carefully note both aims and methods. Compare both with your own. Re¬ports of such visitation at the story club or training-class followed by general discussion of the facts reported will be especially valuable both for example and for warning. Category:Writing techniques